March 31 - Season Turn

Season Turn - Arctic Terns (Sterna paradisaea) make the longest migration of any bird. Anywhere between 10,500 - 12,500 miles one way. This long migration is necessary to reach their Spring nesting grounds in the far north from the oceans around Antarctica.

Arctic Terns mate for life, and in most cases, return to the same colony each year. Breeding begins around the third or fourth year. It lays from one to three eggs per clutch, most often two. Both sexes share incubation duties. The young hatch after 22–27 days and fledge after 21–24 days.

March 27 - Water Flows

Water Flows - Springtime growth thrives on water supplies unlocked as temperatures rise. The rising temperatures cause increased evaporation; thus there is more water in the air, and this further increases snowmelt.

Grow Time - The time a plant needs to break out of its dormancy depends on the number of hours during the winter that the temperature stayed at or below 45°F . The colder the winter, the longer it takes the plant to start its spring growth cycle.

March 25 - Sheep Fleece

Sheep Shearing - the process by which the woollen fleece of a sheep is removed. The person who removes the sheep's wool is called a shearer. Typically shearing occurs in the Spring so that the sheep don't overheat. This process occurs once per year per sheep. The annual shearing most often occurs in a shearing shed or a facility especially designed to process often hundreds and sometimes over 3,000 sheep per day. Sheep shearing is an essential part of sheep rearing in many countries around the world.

Pollen Rise - Temperatures rise with the Sun, creating winds that disperse pollen. Airborne pollen concentrations are usually highest in the morning. So those who are allergic to pollen start to feel the symptoms of the season.

March 20 - Vernal Equinox

Spring Arrives! (Vernal Equinox) - On March 20 at 5:48 UT, the Sun will be directly over the Earth's equator. This is the precise moment when Spring officially begins! On a day which has an equinox, the center of the Sun will spend nearly an equal amount of time above and below the horizon at every location on Earth, and night and day will be of nearly the same length.

Purim (Begins at sunset) - a Jewish holiday that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people of the ancient Persian Empire from Haman's plot to annihilate them, as recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther.

March 17 - St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day - is an annual feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick (385–461 AD), one of the patron saints of Ireland, and is generally celebrated on March 17.
The day is the national holiday of Ireland. In Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States and New Zealand, it is widely celebrated but is not an official holiday.

The date of the feast is occasionally moved by church authorities when March 17 falls during Holy Week; this happened in 1940 when Saint Patrick's Day was observed on 3 April in order to avoid it coinciding with Palm Sunday, and is happening again in 2008, being observed on 15 March. March 17 will not fall during Holy Week again until 2160.

March 12 - Daylight

Rapidly Increasing Daylight - The rate of increase in daylight is greatest near the vernal equinox (March 20th), when each day gains about three more minutes of light. Near the solstices, each day's (and night's) length is almost the same.

Missed Meal - Many birds use day length to know when to lay eggs so hatchlings have plenty of caterpillars to eat. Caterpillar larvae hatch when warmer days mean more leaves for them to eat. Earth's recent hot temperatures have thrown this cycle off. Caterpillars are emerging earlier and more are making it to metamorphosis, which in turn offers less of a food source for birds.

March 9 - Mud Season

Mud Season - a term used to denote a time period in late Winter and early Spring when the temperature rises above freezing consistently for several days. The Mud season occurs only in places where the ground freezes deeply in winter, is covered by snow, and thaws in spring. Dirt roads and paths become muddy because the deeply frozen ground thaws from the surface down as the air temperature warms. The snow melts but the frozen lower layers of ground prevent water from percolating into the soil and so the surface layers of soil become saturated with water and turn to mud.

Daylight Savings Time begins today - the convention of advancing clocks so that afternoons have more daylight and mornings have less. Typically clocks are adjusted forward one hour near the start of spring (Spring forward) and are adjusted backward in autumn (Fall back). Modern DST was first proposed in 1907 by William Willett. About half of the countries in the world have used it since then; details vary by location and change occasionally.

March 4 - Condor

Condor - the name for two species of New World vultures. They are the largest flying land birds in the Western Hemisphere.

Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus) which inhabits the Andes mountains of South America.

California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus) nowadays restricted to western coastal mountains of the United States. A successful captive breeding & release program has seen an increase in the population of the California Condor.